The Bride of Texas (61 page)

He squeezed her hand, and he felt ready to burst with joy. His wife was not only beautiful and exotic, she was also a real American, a patriot who, amidst the excitement and cheering, couldn’t forget that tall, thin, homely man who had made this victory parade possible. Without Lincoln the Union would have split and the war would have been put off for twenty or thirty more years. But it would have happened in the end, because the country could not exist half slave and half free. And that war would have
affected his sons, the sons his beautiful, exotic American wife would bear him
.

“I hoped I could take care of it so you would never find out —”

“So my father had to tell me. Did you know your father invited him to talk about it?”

“No, I didn’t.” Étienne was surprised
.

“You probably weren’t home,” she said scowling. “You were either in bed with the perfume factory or off somewhere with your fancy fiancée.”

“No, Linda, I swear —”

“And do you know what he wanted?”

“My father’s a fool.”

“No, I’m the fool,” said Lida. “The way she looked me over.”

Little clouds drifted over Bentonville, white and sad. Lida’s hands were clenched in her lap and Cyril, his left arm bandaged to the shoulder, puffed on a corncob pipe, letting the hatred inside him cool. All that was left was fear for his tea-rose.

Old Toupelik couldn’t imagine why Mr. de Ribordeaux had summoned him, or why he had sent a carriage to pick him up — not the light gig, but a formal black box of a coach with a liveried coachman. Half an hour later, he was sitting in the big parlour again, with the naked woman rising from the seashell over the mantelpiece and the fleshy faces of people in lace collars peering down at them. This time they were not served by the yellow girl; Mr. de Ribordeaux himself poured him a cognac in a brandy snifter. Toupelik took a sip right away. Clearly this summons did not augur well, but it took him a while to realize that this had happened to him once before, in the old country, and then there had not been a child. And this was America
.

“Oh no, Mr. Ribordeaux.” He shook his leathery head — and
what was going through it? “I can’t tell Lida what to do. One time I —” He wanted to explain how he had once helped kill his daughter’s fortune — or was it her misfortune? If it was, he hadn’t been responsible. “And then I — she —” He wanted to say that he had bartered the bride and brought her all the way to Texas, not for the slaves Mr. de Ribordeaux was offering him now, because farmer Mika had had none, but for the fare to America and Cyril’s freedom. In short, it had been a good deal. What was going through his head? It had been good for him, good for his family, and he thought it had also been good for Lida, for there was a procession of suitors, not just from Cat Spring but all the way from Dubina, Hostyn, and the nearby German villages. To these men the illegitimate child didn’t matter. They were in America now. But she had turned them all down, and now, over a glass of cognac, he finally knew why. History was repeating itself. “Oh no, Mr. Ribordeaux! And you let them be too!”

“Étienne,” said Mr. de Ribordeaux from under the canopy of smoke rising from the big cigar, “is engaged to be married. Scarlett is the daughter of my good friend Delatour. They’ve know each other since they were children. They grew up” — Mr. de Ribordeaux hesitated — “if not together, then at least both on plantations.”

History was repeating itself. With one difference that old Toupelik was not aware of. “Well,” he said, “until the priest has bound them together, such engagements can always be —”

De Ribordeaux rose, thought for a moment, and refilled the other man’s glass to the brim. He took a fresh cigar out of the humidor, sliced off the tip, and lit it with the waxed end of a wood splinter that he ignited from the candle
.

“Think about it,” he said. “There’s a war on. The Confederacy needs soldiers.”

So history was indeed repeating itself. In the old country he had been prepared to use subterfuge, connections, bribes. Here he found
these measures repugnant. “You mean Cyril?” And he also felt fear for his son. “He’s a young man, not twenty-six yet,” he said. “We came here to the American republic, not the Confederacy.” His defiance was rising like bread dough. “We have no slaves — just the two Mr. Carson lent us.”

“The South acted on its constitutional right to secede,” declared old de Ribordeaux. “You are now citizens of the Confederacy. As for slaves” — he corrected himself — “I mean servants, most citizens of the Confederacy don’t own any. They just know that this conflict is about our inalienable rights. The right to own servants is simply one of those many rights. If that were the only thing we were after —”

Toupelik knew he was lying. What else could they be after? Was anything else being taken away from them? He too stood up. “Leave them alone. If they love each other —” He looked up to see a distinct sneer on de Ribordeaux’s face. He suddenly understood more than he wanted to. He understood that his daughter, being who she was, could hardly be in love. He looked around the parlour. It reeked of gold and the smoke of fine cigars. And they were in America now. “— then leave them alone!”

“If they love each other,” said de Ribordeaux sarcastically, as if to confirm Toupelik’s realization. “Are you so sure that both of them — that they truly love each other?”

Defiance crumpled his brain like a ball of paper
.

“Leave them alone, Mr. Ribordeaux!” he shouted. “I —” He looked around at the dull lustre of the walls of the parlour impregnated with the smell of money, at the unattractive faces in the pretty lace collars, and his eyes came to rest on the shameless girl on the seashell. “I have nothing to talk about with you.”

He ran out of the parlour, out of the hall, out of the big house. He waved off the Negro in livery and walked, almost ran, towards the north-west, where his still poor but now beautiful farm was located
.

As he went, de Ribordeaux’s words kept running through his head: “The Confederacy needs soldiers.”

“When I think back on it, I finally understand. It was awful! Awful! Awful!” Only afterwards did she see herself as she thought Scarlett in the shiny gig would have seen her, a drudge in a coarse skirt and a sweat-stained blouse, obviously stinking of labour and probably — or so the young lady whose own odours were masked by perfume would have thought — of other, worse things. “Awful!” she yelled. “How could you do this to me?”

“I intended to tell you about it after I’d taken care of everything, Linda darling —”

“Awful!” She was weeping convulsively. He had never seen her this way before. He thought he knew why she was weeping, but he didn’t
.

The previous evening, she had walked into the sitting room at home and found her father at the table over a glass of last year’s home-made slivovitz. “Sit down,” he said
.

“What is it?” Her spine was tingling
.

“Sit down.” Then he told her everything. He saw her turn pale. “Have a drink,” he said
.

She hadn’t expected this. That bastard Étienne. She had known it wouldn’t be smooth sailing, but she hadn’t counted on this. But she would settle it right away. And she’d settle Dinah right away, too. Cyril would find his happiness, or whatever. And so will I. That is, I’ll get what’s coming to me. He’ll crawl like a worm. Like a worm
.

Suddenly, like a red-hot dagger in her heart, came the memory of the sweaty afternoon on the field, and the gig —

Étienne. The bastard
.

She was being perfectly honest. There was nothing to pretend any more — not now that Vitek was dead. Nothing at
all. So Cyril knew everything. He sat resting his wounded arm in its white bandage, and sad little clouds drifted over Bentonville.

She took a drink and poured herself another. Her father didn’t stop her
.

“Do you really love him?” he asked
.

Whatever was going through her head?

“He loves me,” she said
.

“Then why didn’t he tell you about the other one?”

She laughed. He had, in fact, told her about the other one. It was the third one he hadn’t told her about, the third person in their tangled pentangle
.

“He was probably too afraid to,” she giggled
.

Her father hesitated. Then he took a sip
.

“And do you think —”

“What?”

“That he won’t jilt you?”

“Him?” She laughed again. “Don’t worry, Father. I’ve got him tied to my apron-strings!”

She was an American now
.

Cyril didn’t know that for a time she thought he had lost his fragrant beauty. That night they were awakened by horses’ hoofs, then a banging on the door, then the shouting of wild interlopers
.

Father burst into the room. “Cyril!”

Cyril sat up in bed
.

“It’s the Rangers!” Father exclaimed hoarsely. “Out the window, quick! Head for the woods! I’ll bring you some clothes tomorrow.”

By then Cyril was halfway out the window, in his drawers and undershirt. The door was broken open and their mother started screaming
.

The girl was reading faster than before. She was getting interested in the story now. The author had shifted from describing tactics — which he had studied after the war as a colonel — to an account of the battle he had witnessed first-hand, as a lieutenant. She was no longer stumbling over words, and the pleasant cadence of her voice spoke to the sergeant of his old comrades
.

“The carnage that erupted in Hardee’s rear lines forced him temporarily to set aside the order to storm Carlin’s division. Morgan’s units, which had circled around Hardee’s corps, now attacked him from the flank. The battle-scarred Rebel veterans fought hand to hand and forced us back to our hastily constructed defences. We advanced again, and the enemy, gaining his second wind, once again quelled our attack. General Hardee, intent on improving the even odds, ordered cannon moved from the forward line, whereupon the men, fighting for their lives, experienced a hail of shrapnel, which mowed them down and ripped the needles off the evergreens like a merciless tempest. During a lull in the fighting brought on by the exhaustion of the men on both sides, our company could look up and see nothing but bare pine trees, trunks and branches stripped even of their bark. During that lull, I looked out at the field of battle, covered with dead and wounded, rifles dropped by men as they fell, knapsacks and caps riddled with bullet-holes, but also many other less predictable objects. For example, I spied a leather-bound book, although I am not certain it was a Bible. Nearby I saw a jar of preserves undisturbed by the rain of shrapnel and shining in the sunbeams like a warning light; a wooden flute; a pipe with smoke still rising from it; a lady’s pink garter.…”